Audiobook experiment has library of results

Last December, I told you why and how I switched from listening to music to listening to audiobooks while exercising on my treadmill. That switch continues to be a significant and positive change.

Because I listen mainly to history books, I'm learning a lot during that hour (or two) every day, rather than simply passing the time with familiar music stored on my iPod.

I began the experiment by listening to audiobooks from Audible.com, which works well since it's easy to download the books to a Macintosh or Windows PC and transfer them to a portable player.

Plus, to make the continuous listening experience smooth and easy, Audible's default bookmark feature enables me to stop, turn off the player and then resume again the next morning, without losing my place.

In my view, Audible's only drawback is the price. An audiobook costs $15 to $30, or more for the long history tomes I favor.

After the column ran, many of you wrote to tell me that the Seattle and King County library systems have sizable audiobook collections, and both permit patrons to borrow and listen to them for free.

Some of you also mentioned that these audiobooks are easily downloadable to a PC for transfer to a portable player, but not downloadable to a Macintosh and iPod without using special conversion software.

Alternatively, the King County Library System (KCLS) eAudio alternative allows patrons to borrow a portable player with an audiobook already downloaded and ready for playback. To see what's available, go to the Web site (www.kcls.org), and in the Explorer Catalog enter eaudio in the search box. The collection currently includes 780 audiobooks.

If you have a KCLS library card, you can select a title, place a hold, and request that it be sent to your local branch. The book will be downloaded to a player and arrive ready for you to turn it on and listen.

New to the KCLS is the acquisition of Playaway players, which are sold with audiobooks already loaded on them (one book per player). This is advantageous to the audiobook publisher, which doesn't have to risk copyright violation, and to the librarian, who doesn't have to download the audiobooks and transfer them to players.

For more information on eAudio and Playaway, go to www.kcls.org/eaudio/eaudiofaqs.cfm">www.kcls.org/eaudio/eaudiofaqs.cfm. At this time, however, the KCLS has only 109 Playaway audiobooks available, though that number is likely to increase.

Since library systems generally have collections of audiobooks on CDs (the KCLS has more than 7,000 titles, with approximately 100 new titles added every month, for instance), I decide to try that option. I figure most people have a CD player, and that might be a good way for low-tech listeners to get started. So I drive to my local Richmond Beach Library branch, browse the shelves of audiobooks on CDs and check out a couple of titles.

Soon, I'm back home again and ready to begin listening to a 29-disc biography of Alexander Hamilton.

I attach the cable that connects my cochlear hearing device (I'm totally deaf without it) to my portable CD player through the earphone port, insert the first CD, and press Play.

It sounds good — as good as the audiobooks from Audible.com, and listening to the library's audiobooks costs nothing. Looks like my library patronage will be increasing even more than it already is, as I also love reading books I can hold in my hands while curled up on the couch.

After listening for a while, I begin worrying about whether I'll have trouble finding my place again after I've stopped listening and want to resume the next day. It turns out that although most CD players don't have bookmarking capability, if I don't remove the CD from the player and just turn it off, it will start up where I stopped.

However, there is one CD player designed for use with audiobooks that does have bookmarking capability: the Brilliance Audio (formally Soulmate) Soul MP3 Audiobook CD Player ($150, www.soulmateaudio.com/player.asp). Even when I remove a CD, I can load it later and it will keep my place — that is, if I remember to push the bookmark button to save it. This CD player can also navigate to chapters and pages, albums and songs, folders and files on up to 12 CDs.

I'm still open to other audiobook alternatives besides the library, so when I hear about Simply Audiobooks (www.simplyaudiobooks.com), I check it out. The service enables members to buy and download audiobooks, or to rent them on CDs, similar to the popular Netflix DVD-rental service.

While registering, I choose the type of rental service I want, which determines how many titles I can have at a time. For example, if I sign up for one title the cost is $15 per month, or $12 if I pay for a year's subscription ($144 per year). Once I've registered with at least one title selected, a packet arrives a few days later with the CDs and postage-paid packet for returning them. When I return an audiobook, Simply Audiobooks sends the next from my list of desired titles.

I'm currently trying the service for free (which anyone can do for 15 days), and so far the audiobooks sound good. The Simply Audiobooks collection includes more than 22,000 titles (10,000 rental titles), a lot more than my public library system offers. So when I run out of interesting titles to borrow from the library, I'll have to pay for my listening pleasure. Good thing that renting audiobooks is a lot cheaper than buying them.

One other CD audiobook resource I should mention is AudioBookHouse.com, a new service designed to provide blind people with free and low-cost audiobooks. It's able to provide these audiobooks so cheaply ($3 to $5) because it uses text-to-speech conversion technology to convert classics and other books in the public domain to audiobooks and burn them on CDs.

Previous experiences listening to computer voices led me to assume I would not like the results. But text-to-speech conversion technology seems to have advanced in recent years, and the results are much improved.

So, if you're looking for a low-cost alternative to renting or buying audiobooks on CD, you might want to try AudioBookHouse. It offers only about 30 titles, but is growing fast.

Write Linda Knapp at lknapp@seattletimes.com; to read other Getting Started columns, go to: www.seattletimes.com/gettingstarted

Information in this article, originally published March 17, 2007, was corrected March 24, 2007. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the King County Library System has 230 titles in its collection of audio books on CD. In fact, it has more than 7,000 titles, with approximately 100 new titles added every month.